In the semiconductor industry, there are continuing efforts to increase the functionality of various products while reducing costs and (when appropriate) reducing the size of the packaged products. These efforts have lead to the increased usage of multi-chip packages (MCPs) which include a plurality of integrated circuits in a single package, multi-chip modules (MCMs) which include a plurality of integrated circuits in a single module, hybrid packages which incorporate other components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors and crystals into a package together with one or more integrated circuits, and multi-component packages which include a plurality of components in a single package. Although there is no consistent terminology in the art, the term "multi-chip package" appears to be the most accepted and will be used herein to refer to each of these types of packages, regardless of the number of chips that the package actually houses.
A representative multi-chip package is diagrammatically illustrated in FIG. 1. As seen therein, the multi-chip package 110 includes a substrate 112 that supports a plurality of dies 114, a plurality of film based components 116 (which in the embodiment shown are printed resistors), and a plurality of discrete components 118 (which in the embodiment shown are capacitors). A lead frame 120 with leads 121 is provided to electrically couple the devices to external circuitry and wiring traces 123 are arranged to electrically couple the various associated components together and to associated lead frame leads. Further landing 125 may be provided to support the discrete components and electrically connect the discrete components. The dies may be connected to their associated traces or leads by wire bonding. When connecting bonding wires to traces, the traces are often gold plated to facilitate better bonding. Although this type of packaging has worked well to date, there are continuing efforts to increase the density of components on a designated amount of package substrate "real estate" in a cost effective manner.